USPS Wants a Bigger Part of eCommerce Fulfillment

The U.S. Postal Service is losing millions of dollars every day. Part of their proposed solution? Stop delivering mail on Saturdays.

Yesterday, the U.S. Postmaster General, Patrick Donahoe, announced that the Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays starting in August. This would include letters, postcards, catalogs, flyers, and a lot of other junk mail.

You know what they WILL continue to deliver on Saturday? Packages.

The USPS has been losing money for years, and while much of it is blamed on employee benefits, there’s no arguing that the Internet has also played a significant role, as email has all but killed letters, paying bills online has become standard, and digital communication is now preferred by many advertisers as well.

So why only eliminate mail from Saturday delivery? Because the Postal Service knows that they have some real advantages over their competition when it comes to small parcel delivery, and they also recognize that with the growth of online shopping, they are in a unique position to gain market share by becoming more of a go-to source for eCommerce order fulfillment.

For many big proposed changes like this, the Postal Service still has to answer to Congress, but USPS claims to have found a loophole that will allow them to move forward with a five-day delivery schedule without congressional approval.

Regardless of whether or not Saturday mail delivery comes to an end this summer, it has become even more clear that the U.S. Postal Service has its eye on eCommerce fulfillment. And wisely so, I may add.